The World Cup in Brazil is getting closer and this is the second time the country is hosting the competition after more than 60 years. The tournament will be held from 12 June to 13 July and 12 cities were selected to host the World Cup games. The official mascot is the tatu-bola and it carries the colours of the Brazilian flag. Plus, after the public vote for the official ball, the “Adidas Brazuca” was chosen because the ball takes inspiration from elements of Brazilian culture.
Brazil, a country famous for soccer, Carnival and samba has approximately 190 million inhabitants and it´s the fifth most populated country on Earth. As a matter of fact the World Cup 2014 represents a chance to transform the country in many aspects and also shows the capacity for modernization and organization.
Apart from the World Cup I will list some additional reasons for learning or improving your Portuguese skills:
• You may have advantage once you speak Portuguese considering the fact that Brazil belongs to BRIC, an acronym for ‘Brazil, Russia, India and China’, which means its economy has grown rapidly during the last years. Besides that, I would say that you might get competitive advantage if you speak Portuguese specially if you are looking for a job in those countries.
• In my previous article I wrote about my experience as a volunteer so, if you have the intention to become a volunteer abroad you should start thinking about going to Brazil due the fact the country has a marvelous tropical climate, beautiful places and definitely you can learn the language, promote intercultural exchange and cause a positive impact in Brazilian society.
• If you make up your mind about learning Portuguese you make the first step to learn other Latin languages which are very similar. On the other hand you can understand new sounds, expressions and different points of view.
Do you know that learning Portuguese is much easier than other languages? So why don´t you brush up on your Portuguese and get prepared for the World Cup in 2014?